Golf club putters having curved putting surfaces provide advantages in enabling truer rolls because of the over spin which they are able to impart to a ball during putting and particularly when made of a material such as titanium. The over spin causes the ball to hug the putting surface, without the skips or hops which may affect the accuracy of the putt. However, in order to maintain such advantage it is necessary for the putter head to be aligned with and actually strike the ball at a position on the ball below the equator of the ball. Should the curved surface contact the ball at a position above the equator and particularly when a degree of force is required, such as with a long putt, this contact of curved surface with the ball will actually force the ball into the ground, with a nearly inevitable, difficult to control, hop, which is detrimental to putting accuracy. The excessively high contact is very likely to occur with power putts because of the longer swing and the tendency of the golfer to try to avoid clipping the ground which may skew the putter head during the swing.
Even with putters having flat faces, the angle of contact, whether late or early in the swing, presents an angled rather than a flat contact surface, and if not actually intended or controlled, can result in unwanted lift or hop. Thus it is be desirable for players having problems with their swing to utilize putters with varying angled flat faces which compensate for early or late contact during the swing to provide a desired full flat surface contact (or angled lift contact). A slight lift is however desirable in order to slightly lift a ball from a nestle within grass in a ground surface. Accordingly, standard flat faced putters are made with a 3.degree. positive angled flat surface. This however exacerbates problems with late or early contact with varying angle contacts and significant inconsistencies inherent therein. A ball may be driven into the ground with an early strike and lofted off the ground with a later strike. Radial surface putters avoid this problem by providing an effective degree of loft when the ball is struck below the equator with the same effective loft being maintained through a wide range of effective putting strokes.
Another common problem in putting which provides the same effect as early or late stiking contact is that of the hand position of the golfer in relation to the club head at the time of impact. Thus, if the hands are brought through too early in relation to the putter head the result is the same as if impact was made early in the stroke where the club is tilted forward. A radial face allows or compensates for early or hands forward but a flat face does not. Breaking of the wrists resulting in the head of the golf club being in front of the hands at impace provides the same result as a late strike in the stroke. This is detrimental with use of either a flat or radius face putter of the prior art.
However, golf clubs, made according to accepted tournament playing rules and which are not of a novelty type, are not permitted to have different faces for hitting a ball and different clubs must be utilized by a golfer having swing and ball contact variations.